Don’t talk like that!

I was listening to the radio on my way to the golf course a couple of weeks ago. The announcer said it was Worldwide Teacher’s Day. Yep, another special day. Of course, teachers need to be honored for their hard work, especially during these COVID times. And I was reminded of the impact that teachers made in my life while growing up back at Clement.

When I got to the golf course, I ran into Mr. Pat Jones. Pat is a part of the golf group I play with on a somewhat regular basis. Mr. Pat was one of those very same teachers at Clement during my high school days. Often, the influence of those teachers was not through books and the classroom. As I have shared before, he was one of those who had an impact. And it wasn’t in the classroom.

It happened when a couple of my buddies and I were hanging around the outside of the old gym at Clement during school. Many of you older folks can remember the gym at Clement that, for some reason, many called “the barn.” So my buddies and I were hanging around outside the gym talking “big.” I hadn’t noticed that the other guys had stopped talking that way and were giving me some hard glances. I just kept on running my mouth using some choice “adult” words. I also hadn’t noticed the reason why they had suddenly become quiet. I hadn’t notice that Mr. Pat Jones had walked up behind me.

Mr. Pat is an easy going gentleman these days, but he could be one scary teacher to a young freshman in high school. Well, to a senior student, also. He was “Coach Jones,” the tall, imposing teacher and coach, who you really didn’t know what he would do if you didn’t obey, but you didn’t want to find out. He was the male teacher that the lady teachers would send us misbehaving students to if they didn’t want to bother with sending us all the way down to the principal’s office.

Finally, way too late, I realized that Coach Jones was standing behind me. With a sense of impending doom, I turned around and saw him staring at me. I pretty much felt, and for good reason, that my life was over. What he said next had an impact then and has since.

“Does your mother know you talk like that?” he said, looking me straight in the eye.

“No sir,” I stammered in reply.

“Well, I better not hear you talk that way again, or she will,” he said firmly. Then he turned around and walked away. I felt relieved, like I had received a pardon from the governor. But he had made his point. I wouldn’t want my mother to hear me talk that way. Isn’t it funny how something said from around fifty years ago can stick with you? And it has. In the past, there have been times when I notice I’m starting to use language that’s heading in the wrong direction. Then I hear it, “Does your mother know you talk like that?”

Trust me, she didn’t want to know I talked like that. She said people curse because they were not smart enough, or had a good enough vocabulary, to say what they wanted to say without it. She said you are showing your intelligence, or lack thereof, when you curse. But the sad thing these days is that many intelligent people, or they appear to be, feel the need to use profanity in their speech or writings.

Back to the golf course. Due to the occasional misdirected shot and missed easy putt, (Okay, maybe not so occasional) there’s a tendency for some misguided language to slip in there. But I try to limit it to something like, “You sorry suck egg dog!” That’s because of a lesson learned in school years ago. Also, I know mama is up in heaven looking down, and I don’t want her to know I talk like that!